


Snows of the North

by wearethewitches



Series: author's favourites [20]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Timeline, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Children, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Illegitimacy, King Rhaegar, M/M, Moat Cailin - Freeform, Multi, Ned Stark Lives, Ned Stark has many many MANY children, No Beta, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 01:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: AU where every time Ned Stark fucks, he has a kid and the repercussions thereafter.





	Snows of the North

**Author's Note:**

> Please bear with me. I fixed everything I could think of, though some canon relationships are clearly..............Not Going to Work Here (i.e. Cat/Ned, Lyanna/Rhaegar & Cersei/Jaime). Also I wrote two thirds of this like last year, so if the quality somehow rises about the time where Rhaella gets some POV in, then yee-ha boy - kaiidth.
> 
> Full list of Snow's with birth-years at the end.

The first child is an accident. As is the second, the third and the fourth. Jon Arryn beats him till the Maester dares order his lord to stop – Ned’s brain aches for weeks afterwards and his regular visits to Winterfell cease.

 _Wolf’s Blood_ , the serving girls whisper and giggle. Robert is put out by Ned’s ‘record’, as he likes to call it, but truth be told, Ned can count on one hand how many women he has slept with and they equal the amount of children he has gotten on each of them. When he writes to his father about it, Rickard gives him the verbal equivalent of Jon Arryn’s beating and it is only months later, when the first child is born, that Ned writes home again – asking permission for the girl to be called _Lyarra,_ after Mother.

Children are difficult to raise, it turns out, but Ned is naturally gifted and the four women who sleep in the large chamber off his own all make nice with each other, praising his parenting when they think he can’t hear them. Lyarra is the first – Hanna is next, with a larger forehead and a tinier nose than her sister. Born two weeks apart, Ned marvels at how they were conceived the same evening and how different they look.

But Hanna’s mother, a scullery maid called _Tyanna_ from the Westerlands, falls to blood-fever. She dies the day before his third child is born, a boy who ends up being called _Torrhen._ Ned looks after Hanna the most, where Lyarra and Torrhen’s mothers cannot pick up the slack.

Similarly, a month afterwards, six weeks to the day Lyarra was born, Young Ned’s mother takes to the same blood-fever. Coleman, the maester who cares for them – who stopped Jon Arryn from almost killing Ned for siring four bastards in the space of a year, who helped birth all his children so far, who educated Elbert Arryn, Robert Baratheon and Ned himself when he came from Winterfell –manages to heal her, but she is far too ill to care for her child for a long time yet. Coleman offers support by word when Ned cries in his study, over two women he had spent time with – Tyanna dead and Mara near sick to death.

“Is it my fault? Do the Gods take retribution for my sins?” he asks the maester, morose.

Coleman shakes his head, “You are a fine father, young lord. In time, this guilt shall ease. Mothers do not often survive childbirth and that is the truth of it. Just be more careful, next time.”

Ned is not careful. Ned drinks for his sorrows over three days and four moons after he has packed it all away, has managed to gain some sort of equilibrium and balance being a father as well as a ward, a farmer with his pitchfork demands he marry his peasant daughter for the sake of their child.

 _Father,_ Ned later writes at the end of a missive about betrothing Lyanna to Robert, _please forgive me, but there is a fifth babe and they are solely mine as Hanna is. The father of the girl I impregnated shall throw them off a mountain should I not retrieve them from his daughter’s care._

Robert, who’s young Mya is older than Ned’s children, claps a hand on his shoulder when the nasty business is dealt with. “I see now why you were so careful not to bed women, before I convinced you,” his best friend states, only the smallest amount of amusement to be heard, “Father of five before you turn sixteen namedays – your future wife won’t be happy.”

Certainly, Ned’s siblings aren’t happy. Brandon, the hypocrite who has already admitted to fucking Barbrey Ryswell often enough she’s used tansy tea twice to rid herself of babes, writes to call him an idiot and a blight on the Stark name; Lyanna, his baby sister, scolds him for ruining the other women’s reputations, calling him a horrible brother; Benjen simply reminds him how bastards are seen and how they will grow up to be treated as less than dirt by those Nobles who dare notice them.

It’s not pretty. Guilt festers and makes him almost ill with shame, but Ned can’t regret his children – any of them.

Lyarra sings before she talks, notes perfectly in tune. Her dark brown curls are like her grandmother, the Lady Lyarra Stark and when she smiles, Ned thinks of his father. Hanna is more like her late mother, with downy, white-blonde hair and round cheeks that go pink when she gets excited. Her Stark grey eyes are like stars and she is always happy – when she isn’t screaming her head off, of course.

Young Ned is like Ned and Benjen’s doppelganger, with the strongest Stark look and a frown like his fathers. Lyarra’s mother, Alyssa, was the first to get him to smile, by crossing her eyes and waving her hands behind her ears and Young Ned couldn’t help but burst into joyous peals of laughter shortly afterwards at her look of shock. Torrhen similarly has the Stark look, though a hare lip and riotous curls set him apart from his brother, along with darker skin like his Braavosi mother.

When his fifth child is born, it is far too soon and her mother passes from loss of blood. The child barely survives to see sunrise before she too, is lost. Ned weeps for them both and cuts a lock of hair from the girl’s head, a dark curl of almost-black. Jon, pitying for once rather than disapproving, has a locket commissioned and when it is made – the child and the mother long buried – Ned puts the bundle of soft, baby-down hairs inside, locking them away and putting the chain around his neck to hide under his hauberk.

 _Sorry about the kid_ , Robert writes, when he hears, for he is in the Stormlands now. It is 297 AC and Steffon and Cassana Baratheon are with their gods, drowned in Shipbreaker Bay. Ned still lives in the Eyrie – he still does his weapons drills, still breaks his fast with his children and the Snow Ladies, as those around the Eyrie like to call them. He still goes to his lessons with Jon and he _still goes on_.

 _Father of Five,_ he thinks, even when his sixteenth nameday passes and only four of them live. The watchers – those men who Jon Arryn bade keep an eye on which women Robert and Ned would bed, who keep track and note of the women and children sired – get an eyeful that evening. In the following four months, there are three more Snow Ladies, though one bade not bring herself or her child to the Eyrie.

That does not mean Jon Arryn does not know and does not _tell._

“If you wish it,” Ned says to the mother of the baby girl, Elba Stone, hands itching to touch her, for his arms to hold her, “you may contact me when she grows. I can have her taught letters and numbers – pay for any education or other finance you might need. I swear it, by the Old Gods, milady.”

The mother declines, except to tell him she will be working for Lord Royce of Runestone for the foreseeable future.

Letters to his family increase as his seventeenth nameday approaches – the date on which he aims to be home. Ned tells of how Torrhen likes to terrify everyone by climbing up onto chairs and desks; how Little Ned and Lyarra play rough-house with Mya Stone, who barely knows what to do with herself, the shy thing that she is; how Hanna eagerly searches out the ink-pots to colour the pale stone walls black with her hand-prints.

 _Bring them to Winterfell,_ Rickard Stark orders him, when the Snow Ladies band together to write a joint letter to the Lord of Winterfell behind Ned’s back. The four eldest are speaking and call each other’s mothers _mama,_ too, the two youngest less than a year old each – a girl named Young Lyanna with a hare lip like Torrhen and a boy named Edrick, who sticks his hands between his gums at any given moment before he even grows teeth.

“Too many little feet,” Jon Arryn sighs, hugging Ned tightly. “You and Robert are like the sons I never had,” he says, whispering, “I am _so_ proud of you, my boy.”

It burns in his chest as he says goodbye. His bastards are in a wheelhouse with two Snow Ladies, the others on horses wearing breeches and leather tunics, gifts given by Lord Arryn to women that, regardless of how they got there, now have _station_ in the eyes of the North. _Snow Lady,_ Barbrey Ryswell is called, a whisper that has her engaged to be wed to Brandon, lack of children be damned.

 _She’ll be a Stark after you return to Winterfell. I have forced Father to wait until you and my nieces and nephews are here._ Brandon writes to Ned before he leaves the Vale, the formal letters of declaration being sent out to Houses of the North, Paramount Houses, Oldtown and Kings Landing. _Not many like that I am marrying a vassal of a sworn house, father included, but they can go fuck sheep. Wolves do as they wish and I am to be the Stark in Winterfell._

“Who will you marry?” asks Alyssa while they are on the road. Ned knows her well from the past few years. She is the mother of his eldest and the one who holds power amongst the other Ladies – not to mention how she is pregnant again, though not so far along that she cannot afford to forgo the wheelhouse.

He takes a moment to think on her words properly, but an answer from the heart escapes him. “I do not know. Many will not like that I have children whom I love and cherish. I am the second son, though. If Brandon, Gods forbid, were to die, it would be I who would be Lord Stark. As such, I should marry a woman of high station.”

“Meaning no offence, milord,” interrupts Sharra, the mother of Edrick, “but your brother is marrying that Ryswell lady and she ain’t no lady of high station.”

Ned grimaces. “A love match. Uncommon, but not unheard of. Brandon fostered with the Dustin’s, the Ryswell’s sworn lord. Barbrey and Brandon are good to each other and she has the training, besides – it takes more than just marriage to be a proper Lady Stark.”

When they reach Winterfell, it is clear that Barbrey _is_ proper, too. The Broken Tower is no longer broken, rebuilt from the stones that fell with new wolf carvings and banners. _Snow Tower,_ Ned learns it is called, stunned by Barbrey’s forceful nature.

Brandon, grinning and clearly lovestruck, explains shortly. “Barbrey wanted you and yours to have a place. Future Snows can stay there, as well. Father was quieter than usual – I think he likes her. She’s quite the architect, my thorny Barb.”

The Glass Gardens are her next project, apparently. After the wedding, Rickard declares that Brandon will be taking on more responsibilities and that Lady Barbrey will be taking on the full mantle of Lady Stark, with help from Lady Lyarra’s old court.

Said old court is a bunch of old handmaidens who stay the year and are chastised by Barbrey whenever they deem Ned’s underfoot bastards _hindrances._

“My nieces and nephews are not to be treated badly, in my presence, or outside it,” Barbrey says to Ned on his seventeenth nameday, when they dance together. Across the hall, Benjen, Brandon and Lyanna are all doing jigs with Ned’s children, spinning them through the air and filling the air with gleeful giggles.

That shame still sits inside Ned though, that bubbling, black guilt that came from being called _blight_ and _a horrible brother._ He sires another four bastards – two born of Alyssa, twins called Karla and Karlon and two different Benjen’s, born a month apart and called Benjy and Young Ben – all before the tourney at Harrenhal, where he meets Ashara Dayne and is blindsided into silence.

“A quiet wolf, how quaint,” she laughs when he can’t even stutter _hello_ , let alone get a word out. Brandon at his side watches her go with a tilt to his head and Ned later suspects it is only his marriage to Barbrey and the growing bairn in her belly that keeps him from pursuing her.

Harrenhal is tall and dark, still scorched from dragonfire in some places. There are thousands of tents and it is the largest tourney the Seven Kingdoms has seen in decades – but some even say centuries. Ned himself thinks it unlikely he will ever see a bigger one.

“Precious Ned, getting wound up over a lady,” Brandon teases, before Lyanna rolls her eyes.

“He just wants to fuck her and get another niece for us out of her belly.”

Ned flinches. “I don’t. I wouldn’t.”

But he really wouldn’t – Ned knows the true certainty that if he fucks a woman, they’ll produce a child. His blood runs hot and his seed is virile. He always remembers to warn the women after he caresses them and makes them come undone, when they ask for his cock and he’s drunk enough to give it without further thought, even if they’re Snow Ladies who know better by now.

Benjy’s mother, who came from the kitchens of Winterfell and took tansy tea that didn’t work- Benjy was a product of a tryst just off the Great Hall during his nameday feast, hours before he went to bed with the Snow Ladies. He went to the Weirwood later, when they told him of the children to come, asking the Old Gods why they blessed him like this. _An omen_ , he thinks, wondering if House Stark is meant to burst at the seams now, so as to preserve their legacy later.

His sister Lyanna, unbelieving, shakes her head at his defensiveness, her riot of curls – just like Torrhen’s – falling down her back as she leaves their tent, a guard on her tail. Later, she’ll come back with a new tagalong called Howland of House Reed who Brandon will tease, asking if he’s looking to steal the future Lady Baratheon out from under Robert’s nose.

It will be the beginning of the end.

* * *

Ser Oswell Whent is the one to – begrudgingly, loyally – bring the Knight of the Laughing Tree to heel, forcing Lyanna to kneel in front of Aerys Targaryen.

 _Caught burying her armour_ , Ned thinks in shock as more quick-minded lords begin dragging him and Benjen backwards. He starts to fight them, but someone knocks him over the head and drags him over their horse.

“The Mad King wants the Stark’s dead,” Roose Bolton says to him when he wakes. His eyes are filled with panic and Howland Reed has already tied Benjen to his saddle and gagged him for everyone’s sakes. “He’s already put a bounty on every Stark head – Snow’s included.”

“What of Lyanna? Brandon?” Ned rasps.

“Your sister was put to torch,” Howland says and all at once, that Wolf Blood inside him boils. At the head of their party, a familiar voice yells.

“What did I say about saying _anything_ about her?” Robert shouts and Howland flinches, lizard-lion tunic so very _green_ amongst boiled leathers and furs.

 _Put to torch,_ Ned thinks, throwing up. A Stark man has Brandon, thankfully – though his brother is deadly pale and his shield arm lacks anything below the elbow. He’s told later that Brandon put up a fight, that Harrenhal was a massacre as different Houses backed the King.

Robert called the Stormlands to him before Aerys even finished killing Ned’s sister. Elbert Arryn drew his sword against the Lannister’s with Vale Knights at his back – Elbert died lopping off Kevan Lannister’s head, losing his own from a stray lance. The Dornish backed Prince Rhaegar.

Rhaegar Targaryen, who had brought everyone together to begin plans of rebellion against the King.

“It’s said that Princess Elia escaped with the Dornish contingent,” a Frey boy says – a grandson of Lord Walder Frey who’d somehow managed to convince Greatjon to foster him. “Don’t know what’s happened to Princess Rhaenys or Prince Aegon, though, or Her Majesty the Queen.”

News is gathered when they reach Winterfell, where Rickard has sounded the drums of war and already has a plan of attack. Wintertown is full of warriors, old and young, who ache to spill blood in the name of their lady. Ned’s heart aches for his sister and even the hugs and kisses of his wintery brood of children cannot stop the grief from wrapping around him like a cloak.

“The Stormlands are behind you.” Robert had promised him after the first war meeting before taking a ship from White Harbour to his home, where Stannis was already gathering the armies in his name.

The North, the Stormlands and the Vale – Jon Arryn sending word that yes, yes, _of course I’m behind you, Eddard_ even in the face of Elbert’s death – hold an alliance. It’s strong and there’s no breaking it.

The Tyrell’s are unexpected help.

“Their here letter states,” Rickard begins uneasily, after an hour in his solar with Brandon and Ned both, Benjen stuck with Barbrey learning how to run the household for when his father and brothers went off to war. “Their here letter – they say they will not follow Aerys, but they will not fight Rhaegar, either. They will defend their borders and let none – Lannister or Dornish alike – use their roads.”

“How does that help us?” Lord Glover questions, brow furrowing.

“It helps us, for they have swords and cavalry,” Ned explains, “Swords and cavalry that will not be used against us.”

“Their reasoning is both craven and clever,” Rickard continues, “They won’t back a rebellion until they know it can be won, but they won’t back a King who kills daughters of Great Houses, either.”

Dorne declares for Rhaegar officially soon after and the Lannister’s, Aerys. It is not unexpected – young Jaime Lannister is Tywin’s son and heir, a hostage in Aerys’ grasp. Not many blame the Old Lion. The ones that do are the ones to instead point out how Tywin has _two_ sons _and_ a daughter, plus many siblings and their children.

“He’s a dwarf,” Mara, mother of Young Ned, whispers to Ned later, when he’s curled up between her and Alyssa in their large feather bed, hand resting on her swollen belly. “Tyrion Lannister. Tyanna used to tell the most amazing stories about his monstrous face.”

“Tyanna,” Ned says quietly, feeling his child kick under his palm. “Hanna’s mother. She was from the Westerlands.”

“A bastard of the Lannisport Lannister’s, though you wouldn’t know it anymore from how dark little Hanna’s hair has become,” Alyssa confirms, before shoving his shoulder. “Now get to bed with you, milord. You’re riding out to meet the Karstark host in the morn.”

Ned ignores her, looking to Mara, “Do you have any idea for names?”

Mara, pale skin going pink, nods shyly. “I do. But only for a boy. Not a girl.” Ned waits in silence and a few moments later, Mara whispers, “I’d call him Cregan.”

“Cregan,” Ned mumbles. “Cregan Snow.”

“I’ve been reading up the Stark histories,” Mara says, becoming a little excited, “With you, Lady Barbrey and Maester Luwin teaching us all how to read and write, I’ve been able to learn more. I’ve already finished three books!”

“Aye,” Alyssa rolls her eyes, “and you never quiet down about that, either. First it was a full book, then two books, then two books and a _scroll-_ ”

“I like reading, thank-you!” Mara pouts, before Ned pushes up from where he sits between them, smiling faintly.

“My ladies, please, don’t fight. What if the children wake?”

“ _What if I don’t get to sleep?_ ” Velya, mother to Torrhen and Young Ben, calls in her accented tongue through the curtained partition that separates the two adjoined rooms – the door had been called too heavy by multiple Snow Ladies and as such, Ned had it removed. “ _Forget the children, if I don’t get my beauty rest, sisters, I will revolt!_ ”

“ _Shush, all of you!_ ” Then Tiffany complains in a loud moan and Ned presses a short kiss to Mara’s belly before leaving, thinking it strange how his normality is six women and all their babes.

He passes the guards as he leaves, happy to bang into a patrolling duo going up to the top of the tower. Barbrey had left nothing forgotten – given the political climate and the clear order of assassination from Aerys, they weren’t leaving anything to chance. Ned had already heard the men themselves assigned to the Snow Tower calling themselves the Snowguard.

 _It’s almost too respectable,_ Ned thinks. _But then again, trueborn children have sworn shields, a much nobler rank._

Ned knows many would take advantage of Aerys’ orders, if only for the bounty on his children’s heads. Noble bastardry doesn’t mean much in the minds of ill-mannered men – probably less, in fact, than lowborn bastardry. Sometimes, Ned just has to marvel at the sickening, thousand-dragon reward for the head of a single one of his babes.

It’s safe to say that none of the Snow Ladies were happy to hear of it.

The next day, he meets the Karstark contingent, Rickard Karstark at their helm. Ned has only met him twice, both times before he went off to the Vale at eight, but they look well enough alike, despite the generations since Stark wed Karstark. Lord Karstark thumps him on the back and gives him his condolences over Lyanna’s death, then they both turn to Winterfell – bringing a thousand horsemen and five thousand foot-soldiers, similar numbers to many of the other lords, bringing their total army to over sixty thousand, now.

For miles around Winterfell, the armies gather, though some don’t journey North and instead turn their eyes on Moat Cailin. Ned’s Lord Father orders it rebuilt and rebuilt it is – the fortress being reborn within months. But it aggressive, or so say their bannermen. Roose Bolton even goes so far as to say, _the Tully’s will think we are warring them._

“Ned,” Rickard says to his son, “you and Benjen will ride for Riverrun in Brandon’s stead. The Riverlords have not declared for any side, Rhaegar, Aerys or otherwise. This war hasn’t truly started yet, despite the Massacre of Harrenhal. Lines are still being drawn, sides still being chosen. The Crownlands are in disarray and the West hasn’t begun marching, yet. You will gather a contingent of men from Moat Cailin, two thousand at minimum, four thousand if you feel like you can handle it.”

“Benjen?” Ned questions, “Why Benjen? Father, he’s fourteen, not yet a man grown. He cannot ride with an army-”

“I never said he would command them,” Rickard interrupts, terse. “Hoster Tully has been trying to marry his daughters off to the sons of Great Houses since they were in their cradles. You have my permission to argue a marriage between Benjen and Lysa, if that is what Hoster asks of us for allegiance.”

“What if they try to snag Ned, eh?” Brandon asks, skin still grey despite the good healing of his amputated arm – but his voice is strong and it is the _same_. He is not changed from battle, not in his mind and if he is, Ned’s brother is hiding it well. “Barbrey and I have a daughter, but no matter how much we love her, due to Southern rulings on our land, she is not a male heir and cannot rule. She cannot hand down the Stark name legitimately. Ned is my successor. Our Sansa-”

Sansa is beautiful, the first trueborn Stark born since Benjen himself. Ned asked Brandon why he did not name her _Lyanna_ a week after his brother first held her and Brandon said to him, _it’s too painful, Ned and you already gave us a second Lyanna, anyhow. Let her spirit watch over her first namesake, who she held and made laugh. Sansa heralds a new beginning._

“Ned shall not marry unless he wishes it,” Rickard states and Ned, for once, feels free. Only two things bind him to the world: his children, his beautiful babes and toddlers who play together and sleep in each other’s beds because they know nothing else – and the war, that they fight for Lyanna, who died, burned to death for she dared to seek justice in this treacherous world.

He shall only marry if he wishes it.

* * *

The Twins pose a problem.

“You think I’ll let your little Northern army across the water, through _my_ home?” Walder Frey sneers and guwaffs. “Power has gone to your head, wolf pup. I hear you’re like me, otherwise. How are the concubines?”

“My children and their mothers are no business of yours to pry into,” Ned says, voice cold like winter. Wolf Blood bubbles, simmering, brought up a notch. It’s been lying in wait since he calmed after hearing of Lyanna’s death – waiting for battle that this war promises. “I am to treat with Hoster Tully on behalf of my father.”

Benjen waits with the soldiers, dressed in Hornwood livery. Ned shall not let the South know that more than one son of Winterfell has left the North, not if he can help it.

“You’ve said that already.” Lord Frey dismisses him and it irks Ned, despite his upbringing. The Frey’s are bannermen, not a Great House. Ned is owed more respect than this.

“Lord Frey, what agreement can we come to, so you might let my men and I cross?” Ned asks, patience wearing thin but his courtesies – _thankfully_ – still in place.

They are allowed to cross, eventually, but only because the Frey’s hold them up so long that Hoster Tully sends the Blackfish to fetch them. By order of his liege-lord, Lord Frey lets Ned and his Northerners across, without even a toll. But by the time they reach Riverrun, Ned knows he feels a foreboding – the Blackfish is a good conversationalist, when he’s feeling chatty.

Something tells Ned that the Trout won’t be happy with his father’s offer and he’s proven right.

“To be frank, my boy, that’s barely acceptable,” Lord Tully says, sitting back in his chair. Ned stands opposite him, his guard at his back. “Marrying my youngest daughter to the youngest Stark gets me nothing. He hasn’t even been awarded a holdfast yet.”

“He will be,” Ned says, though he honestly doesn’t know which one. In his head, he thinks of potential land Benjen could be given – Moat Cailin is an obvious one, but as much as Ned would like to imagine Benjen ruling the rebuilt fortress, _Ned_ is the second-born son. Ned is the most important piece in this political game of cyvasse.

“Not to mention, Harrenhal lies empty,” Lord Tully adds. “It’s us or the Frey’s. The Whent’s are no more, except Ser Oswell of the Kingsguard. The Tully’s are next in line to inherit and I would see Lysa’s husband take it, when this brewing calamity is over. I don’t think your father would be happy for his youngest son to give up his good name for the sake of an alliance.”

 _I wouldn’t be too sure about that,_ Ned thinks, before Benjen himself ruins his disguise, stepping forth from the grouping of guards.

“I can make those decisions myself, Lord Tully,” Benjen says, drawing the Trout’s attention. “Forgive our deception, but my family thought it safer no-one knew I was coming.”

“Benjen,” Ned mutters, arm reaching out to draw his brother closer, hand coming to rest on Benjen’s shoulder.

“I was going to join the Nights Watch, anyway,” his brother then adds.

“…I see,” Lord Tully says, sceptical. He looks Benjen up and down, eyes lingering on the Hornwood sigil on his tunic, but he nods. “You’d be willing to take on another name, marry my daughter and rule the lands upon which your sister died?”

Benjen flinches, but nods, quiet. Ned clears his throat awkwardly. “I’m sure Prince Rhaegar would be in agreement with this alliance, if Benjen became Lord of Harrenhal. By all accounts, he is…fair. Good.”

“Yes,” Lord Tully says wryly, “and no doubt, he’d award it to you anyway, unless one of his loyal vassals was particularly valiant. For this marriage, I shall allow the Northern armies to cross through the Riverlands unhindered. Be warned though, mine own bannermen shall not supply you; they shall not help you nor shall they be disallowed from taking vengeance, if your men rape and pillage.”

“Truly?” Ned blinks, surprised.

“Truly – with one caveat,” Lord Tully pauses. “Benjen’s line must rebuild Harrenhal within five generations.”

For a moment, Ned thinks it is agreeable. Then, he remembers the state of Harrenhal, the sheer size of it and the disrepair – _before_ the Massacre broke out. Benjen likewise squirms, horrified. The rebuilding of Harrenhal would likely be a project costing over fifty million dragons. Even if it were to be knocked down and a smaller castle built in its place, the kind of money required is not the amount Benjen would have access to after the war.

“By the Gods, man, are you insane?” Ned can’t help but blurt out. “Have you _seen_ that place? What cost would you extract of Benjen’s line if he could not pull through or worse – if his debt grew so large that Harrenhal was taken from him?”

Lord Tully smiles. “Would you like an alternative?”

Ned _growls._ “I would like a _sane agreement._ I would your caveat be disregarded and a simpler one put in place, if one is needed at all!”

“Peace,” Lord Tully raises a hand. “How about this – you write a letter to your friend, Robert Baratheon, Lord of the Stormlands. Arrange the marriage of my daughter Catelyn to him.”

“…my sister _just_ died,” Ned says, quietly fuming. “Robert loved her from afar, was engaged to be wed to her. He might need to settle eventually, but I shall not be the one to ask him to do so, not now. Your terms are not satisfactory, milord.”

“We came here before the rest of the army did!” Benjen exclaims, glaring. “We’re not to war with _you_ , Lord Tully, we want _King Aerys_ dead; and while the North rose of its own accord, we back Prince Rhaegar’s claim to the throne.”

“Boy-” Lord Tully starts, before Benjen snaps back, interrupting.

“You can’t afford to tarry! Even the Tyrell’s can’t stay neutral forever – if the Mad King still has a lick of sense left, he’ll attack them sooner rather than later! But you – you, the _Riverlands,_ they are in the way. The North shall not let the South fight each other, not when the greatest wrong done was to _us_. My sister is _dead_ and you shall let us pass through your lands, or your head be taken!”

By the end of Benjen’s passionate speech, his voice has risen to a shout and the hall is silent. Ned stares at his brother, gripping his shoulder tightly. He thinks of his family – his brothers, his father, Barbrey, the Snow Ladies, Robert, Jon Arryn and his darling children – and he hopes he will not be taken today, by death or by chains.

“I concur,” he says, voice low as he looks to Lord Tully. “We are here to make peace. You may stay neutral if you wish, Benjen may still marry Lady Lysa and take control of Harrenhal if Prince Rhaegar allows it – but you will not make any more demands of us, not those kinds. Robert will find his own wife. Harrenhal will be rebuilt in its own time.”

“What of Catelyn?” Lord Tully questions, voice devoid of emotion, face blank as stone. Ned wonders if, perhaps, he is finally realising the danger he and his people are in. “If you both are so wise, who should Catelyn marry? She is a girl of your age, Eddard Stark, but far from the proliferate cock you are.”

Ned wants to get angry at what Lord Tully says, but he can’t – not when it is a deliberate goading. He lowers his hand from Benjen’s shoulder, standing up straight as he thinks of what eligible heirs there are around Westeros.

 _Who is to be Jon’s successor, now?_ “Milord, excusing the vagueness, but Elbert Arryn is dead. I know not of who will be Jon Arryn’s heir, but whomever he chooses is sure to be righteous and good – Jon is a good man, a good father.”

“He raised you,” Lord Tully notes.

“Aye, that he did,” Ned inclines his head. “Also, not to be found rude, Tyrion Lannister. He’s the heir to the Rock, despite the climate and despite his…”

“Face. Body. Everything.” Lord Tully shrugs, “I’ve met the boy. He has a smart mind, but Tywin Lannister will not give him the Rock. Catelyn gains nothing for herself. Her children might possibly be the heirs after Tywin, if she had them quick enough, but I won’t bargain her life on a possibility – and that’s if the dwarf can even have children at all.”

They stay at Riverrun for the next few nights, before the wedding is held. Lysa is a snivelling, red-headed maiden who looks off into the crowd despondently throughout the ceremony, a girl of fifteen who refuses to look at Benjen. Ned can’t help but feel sorry for his brother – Lady Lysa is obviously in love with another. When they head back North, Lady Lysa comes with them.

As does her sister, Catelyn and her friend, a boy called Petyr Baelish.

“You’ll be housed in Winterfell,” he tells them. “Baelish, you’ll likely be put in with the squires, out in Wintertown – there’s too many Lords to give every visitor individual rooms as per usual.”

Catelyn, a truly beautiful girl, frowns. “Winterfell is that small?”

“There are that many lords,” Ned replies in turn. “The vassals of our bannermen are numerous. The North makes up a third of Westeros – we have the population to fill it evenly. I dread the turn of the war, when we all return.”

Statistics had never been Ned’s favourite subject, but even he knows enough of history to be aware that their forces could be halved, even decimated – leaving the North with less than half of it’s usual numbers.

“As a lady of a Great House, you’ll be given priority,” Ned continues.

“And Lysa?”

“She’ll be installed in the family apartments,” Ned answers, before realising quite suddenly where that would place her.

_Lyanna’s room. Lysa will be placed in Lyanna’s room._

Unaware of his turmoil, Catelyn continues speaking to him, “Will we be able to find each other easily? Lysa has night terrors – both Petyr and I comfort her, usually – separately.”

“…the family quarters are unfortunately for that: family. You will not be allowed in them,” Ned says. “If your sister wanted you, she’d have to ask my father, first and he is not…not a believer in comfort. He’ll order her to get over it and truly, she must. You and… _Petyr,_ will not be with her forever.”

“Would you say that to your own children, Lord Eddard?” Baelish questions, making Ned stiffen. “Night terrors are that, _terrors_. You’d truly tell babes to simply _get over it?_ ”

Ned looks to him, handling his horse well without looking. They meet eyes and Ned finds he doesn’t like Baelish – feeling like every movement he makes is like a snake, ready to pounce.

“As you said, they are babes. I was of the understanding that Lady Lysa is fifteen – or was I mistaken?”

Catelyn, obviously offended, spurs her horse onwards, Baelish following her after a moment. Ned watches them go onwards, joining the more Tully-oriented members of their guard North. Truly, Ned doesn’t know why she came – she could have stayed at Riverrun just as easily and would probably have liked it better.

When they return home, Rickard Stark greets Lysa with a plain expression, but a warm embrace and Ned thinks he sees something like regret on Catelyn’s face at the way Lysa – who moons over Petyr Baelish and refuses to speak when Benjen attempts to gain her favour – startles and looks clear-eyed for the first time in the entire time Ned’s known her.

“Moat Cailin will be yours after the war,” his father says to him later that night in the crypt, Ned’s brothers with their wives and his sister’s bones and ashes deposited under the stone statue that was commissioned over half a year ago, now. A tall boy with burns across his face had sifted through the sticks and stones to return Lyanna to them, as best he could.

 _I’m afraid of fire,_ he’d said when he met up with their party, on their way back to Winterfell. _But she didn’t deserve that. No-one does. Here._ Sandor Clegane, who’d worn red and gold, now lives in the guardhouse with Rodrick Cassel wearing leathers and Stark grey.

“What of Benjen?”

“Harrenhal, apparently,” Rickard snorts, “but I’ve got plans for him, now. The Ironborn are more likely to attack the Westerlands during the war, thank the Gods, but it’s made me perilously aware of how vulnerable and _empty_ our western coast is. If not for this damn _Harrenhal_ agreement, I would have another Wolf’s Den built north of the Stony Shore. Hoster Tully wants it to stay in the family.”

“Can you blame him?” Ned queries, “It’s what you’re trying to do with the North?”

“Yes,” Rickard grumbles, “but unlike the Riverlands, the North is built from Stark’s. The Tully’s were never River Kings. I’ve half a mind to secede from the South.”

It throws Ned completely, the thought of seceding. Never in his right mind would Ned ever think _his own father_ would say such a thing.

“ _What?_ ” he splutters, trying to regain some equilibrium. “Father, that’s madness!”

“Is it? I’m sure Prince Rhaegar would agree to it – we’re going to be the third driving force against his enemies,” Rickard states, before shaking his head. “It was just a thought, Ned. The Seven Kingdoms thrive in different ways, but what works for the South doesn’t always work for the North…Dorne, though, if the North lived in a way like _Dorne…_ ”

Their conversation moves location and time. The next day, Brandon joins them and strangely, _unbelievably,_ Ned finds himself agreeing. Laws implemented by past kings harangue the North’s market, their taxes ridiculous in comparison to the other kingdoms – the Iron Islands suffer the same way, Brandon points out, before an eavesdropping Barbrey compounds the entire argument by saying _the North could be independent, so long as it doesn’t rebel the way the Ironborn try to._

A week later, the Northern army rides south, leaving behind multiple hardy garrisons at key points in the North, including Winterfell, White Harbour and the Neck. They have two objectives and as such, there is a planned split of forces once the Arryn host joins them in the Riverlands. Their first objective is to fight Aerys’ forces. Ravens come from Robert, informing them that those of the Crownlands who joined the Mad King are pitching themselves around Kings Landing with Rhaegar and his men at Dragonstone, sans the Fleet – and as such, it is decided that three quarters of the Northern forces will go to the Westerlands to beat back the Lannister’s, as is their second objective.

“Ned, Benjen, you will go there and stop them from leaving to help Aerys,” Rickard commands. “I will take our remaining forces to Kings Landing, pin them down with Robert and Jon, box them in. Hopefully, the Dornish can go by sea to meet the Prince on Dragonstone, before Aerys gets it into his head to attack his son and heir.”

“And if the Dornish don’t?” Benjen questions.

“We don’t have ships,” Rickard shakes his head, grim. “I have no damn idea how Aerys got to the Fleet before Rhaegar did, but that’s not our business. We’ve not declared for him, nor Robert – this rebellion is bloody and vast, with no clear goal except revenge.”

Jon Arryn grimaces, “The worst kind of war.”

“Aye.”

Ned goes West and he takes advice from his counsellors at every opportunity. Trying to take Goldentooth is suicide. To go by sea would rally the Lannister fleet, not to mention the Ironborn and they fact that they have no ships in any case. Skirting the Westerlands to invade via the Reach is just _asking_ for war with the supposedly-neutral Highgarden.

Eventually, Ned balks and just writes the Lord Lannister a letter.

* * *

“Lord Stark, have you heard the news?” Robert asks the Warden, when their parties meet up. They surround Kings Landing, from a distance, able to see the hubbub inside. Instruments of war sit on the walls and men shuffle across the walkways with bows – but on seeing Robert’s ashen face, Lord Rickard fears the worst.

“What happened?”

Robert hands him a letter, speaking all the while, stuttering and glaring at the air every few seconds. Lord Rickard has to find a chair.

_Ned. Ben. Strung by their necks from Goldentooth’s ramparts. Fool of a boy – why did he try taking Goldentooth?_

“The Northern forces have been seen heading home, turning tail. My scouts have been watching – some are already making their way here, to join you. There’s not many left, milord. Ten thousand live, if that.”

 _Ten thousand!_ Lord Rickard croaks out the words, “We had sixty at the beginning. Ned took- he took three quarters of our forces.”

“Damn,” Robert rumbles. “Thirty-five thousand men dead…Lord Stark, I’m sorry. Ned was like my brother and I know Northerners are good-hearted. I’ll help bolster your losses, once this war is over.”

“They are good-hearted, most of them,” the Stark rasps, before shaking his head and standing. “And they’ll fight even harder, knowing that near-all my children are dead – that near-all my grandchildren will never see their father again.”

They hold Kings Landing at a stalemate. There are two battles, taking out an estimated half of Aerys’ forces before the ships are spotted leaving for Dragonstone. Rickard wishes Prince Rhaegar luck – gods only know whether he will go mad upon learning Prince Aegon is dead, that Viserys is heir to the Iron Throne now that Rhaegar has been disowned.

“Let’s hope Prince Rhaenys was sped away to Dorne,” Lord Rickard says to Jon Arryn, who nods and hopes, just the same as Rickard does.

Their prayers are for naught.

The Lannister fleet sails into Blackwater Bay.

* * *

“Ha! Tywin’s here – he’s beaten them back, probably crushed the Dornish to dust, just like those Stark boys!” Aerys cackles to himself, eating the last of the fruits available in the city as he mutters to himself.

Jaime stands in the light, the sun glaring through the windows to make his golden hair shine. He inclines his head downwards, to avoid looking at it and he wishes he could shut his eyes – the white armour of the Kingsguard is bright and feels like _shame_. Once, he regarded the Kingsguard as the epitome of nobility, of chivalry and honour.

Then Ser Oswell brought a girl to Aerys to be burned, his _so-called **brothers** _told him their job isn’t to protect the Queen when he went to save her from the King and _Aerys killed Aegon._

Jaime can still see his tiny face with his bright red strawberry birthmark on his chin, but it’s always, _always_ replaced by the image of his caved-in head. Jaime saw that boy walk for the first time – heard him say his first word, heard him say _burn ‘em_ because that’s what Aerys shouts every time someone displeases him, not knowing what it means.

 _At least Rhaenys and Rhaella are safe,_ Jaime thinks, knowing that having Varys secret them away North was the best decision he’s ever made _._ They’ll protect them in the North – or rather, Jaime hopes so. For Rhaella, he has no idea what the North will do to the Queen, but they say Ned Stark has a dozen bastards and he loves every one of them. If everyone in the North treats their _bastards_ that way, Jaime believes Rhaenys could be safe. The North seems to be a land that loves their children.

“Almost Dornish,” he mutters, which is a mistake, for Aerys’ head snaps up and his beady violet eyes zoom in on Jaime, making him feel utterly terrified.

“What was that about the Dornish? Speak up, Lannister boy. Kingsguard aren’t meant to speak, but obviously you have something to say.”

“I-” and oh, Jaime should have just gone to that place in his head, rather than think of the North and stupid, bloody Dorne. “I was saying, sire, that the Stark’s act like the Dornish. Just- those rumours, eh? About all the Snows in Winterfell.”

“Yes, those bastard pups,” Aerys sneers, eyes glinting, “Do you know they tried to legitimise them? Rickard Stark wrote to me himself, begging the honour of legitimacy for his crass, half-breed Stark grandchildren. They keep multiplying – that dead Stark boy bred _litters._ ”

Jaime doesn’t reply, letting Aerys quiet down to mutters. Less than ten minutes pass before someone enters the throne room, a messenger dressed in Lannister colours, escorted by Guncer Sunglass – the heir to Sweetport Sound and as much a hostage as Jaime.

“Your Majesty,” the messenger kneels, head bent.

“Who are you? Does Tywin come to defend me?” Aerys barks.

“Your- Your Majesty,” the messenger stutters, “I am Garrison Prester, heir to Garrald Prester of Feastfires. Lord Tywin requests an audience with His Majesty and permission for his forces to enter Kings Landing, to assist His Majesties forces against the traitors.”

Aerys waves him off. “Yes, yes – arise and go get him.”

Garrison is quick to leave, practically running from the hall. Jaime wishes he could follow after him.

Quiet giggles rise from the King, laughter that Jaime has grown to despise. “Yes. Yes, Twyin shall win me my kingdom back, he’ll crush the traitors and he’ll give me Rhaegar’s head…”

“Father?” Viserys’ squeaky voice comes from nowhere and Jaime almost draws his sword, too lost in his own head to realise the boy is walking out from the private corridors, his new Kingsguard at his heel – Balman Byrch, who replaced Prince Lewyn Martell after Aerys had him killed for refusing to kill poor baby Aegon.

“What?” Aerys snaps.

“Father, the servants refuse to feed me!” Viserys complains, angry and too much like his mad father. “They keep saying we’ve no sweets left, but I know they’re lying!”

“We’ll have them burned later,” Aerys rolls his eyes. “I’m busy.”

“But-”

“ _SHUT UP!_ ” Aerys roars at him and even Jaime flinches. “Stand over here, next to me, like a _proper_ Crown Prince! Tywin Lannister is here to bolster my forces and he will kneel in front of me, begging for the chance to honour me!”

Privately, in the depths of his own head, Jaime thinks, _fat chance of that._

They wait and wait. The sun shifts away, off Jaime’s face and Ser Balman is ordered to slice oranges for the king and his whinging son. But something changes in the air – Jaime hears the outside city roaring and screaming and he takes his sword out, cautious.

“My King,” Jaime interrupts the fruit feast, stepping towards the windows and looking across the city, “there’s something wrong.”

“…you think so?” Aerys questions, “You think your father has betrayed me, Ser Jaime?”

Jaime looks across Kings Landing and his eyes land on the docks, where the ships of the Lannister fleet sit in the bay. There are too many boats, Jaime thinks idly, unless his father bought off the Arbour fleet. Ser Balman joins him, cautious and then, Jaime sees it – sees how the golden lions of Casterly Rock are being replaced by the suns of Dorne and the red dragon on black of the Targaryen’s.

 _It’s not just the Lannister fleet,_ Jaime thinks, mouth going dry, stunned. _Father has allied with the enemy._

Ser Balman’s hand comes to clench the back of Jaime’s neck, a remarkable calm laugh escaping the knight’s mouth even as he squeezes hard enough to hurt.

“He’s being overly paranoid, Your Majesty. The city rejoices. Can’t you hear them screaming with joy? The Lannister’s are here to save us. Come, Ser Jaime, put your sword away.”

Jaime meets Balman’s eyes through his helm.

“…the Kingsguard needs new Whitecloaks,” Jaime says, forcing out a brittle laugh as he sheaths his sword. “Sleep is a privilege I dearly wish for.”

Aerys snorts and it looks like he is fooled by the deception. Balman returns to Prince Viserys’ side and Jaime thinks, _we are traitors._

When the doors open, his father striding through, Jaime is by Aerys’ side, hand resting on his sword-pommel.

“Tywin, you came.” Aerys says, grinning. “Come to lead my idiotic Crownlands’ lords?”

“If His Grace wishes it,” Lord Tywin says, voice smooth and calm. At his left is a remarkably pale man, his hair a strange ruddy colour, while at his right, stands a Dornish man. Jaime cannot see the figure standing directly behind him.

Around them, Lannister guards spread out, placing themselves around the throne room, within striking distance of several Goldcloaks and Jaime notices how they aren’t really Lannister’s – how they wear the armour, but don’t walk the part, how some have ancestral weapons instead of the average hand-and-a-half sword and _how_ _Arthur Dayne himself is grinning at Jaime from underneath a Lannister helm._

For the first time in a long while, Jaime has to stop himself from smiling.

His father steps aside fluidly, bowing at the waist as Rhaegar Targaryen steps forth. His smile is fixed and Aerys chokes on his wine as Viserys shrieks.

“Traitor! You’re supposed to be dead!”

“And yet, I live,” Rhaegar says, calm as can be.

Lord Tywin recites thusly, “All hail Rhaegar Targaryen, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”

“You were disowned!” Aerys screeches, standing and pointing at him, arm shaking. “Viserys is to be king!”

“The Martell’s call Rhaegar King!” the Dornishman shouts.

“The Lannister’s call Rhaegar King,” Lord Tywin agrees, standing tall.

“On behalf of my brother,” says a young man Jaime almost can’t see, for how he stands behind Rhaegar, “the Baratheon’s call Rhaegar King.”

The ruddy-haired man speaks, voice quiet enough Jaime nearly doesn’t hear, “On behalf of my father, the Stark’s call Rhaegar King.”

“And the Crownlands have no vote in this,” Rhaegar says, “though, I _did_ get the allegiance of the lords who followed me. Four of six kingdoms – nearly five – call me King, so I, King Rhaegar, for the benefit of the Seven Kingdoms, do so relieve you of your kingship, Aerys Targaryen II.”

“I will not be usurped by a Blackfyre!” Aerys screams back at him, “Goldcloaks, Kingsguard, defend me and rid the world of this traitor!”

As one, the enemy soldiers draw their weapons, but the Goldcloaks are slower and most back away, instead, recognising the situation for what it is.

“Kill him!” Aerys shouts, “Ser Jaime, I order you to take his head! Take your father’s head and take Rhaegar’s head and-”

There comes a swing of a sword, a shriek of metal on metal as his words falter and Jaime watches Aerys’ head fall off his shoulders, falling down off his lap onto the floor, down the steps of the dais to Rhaegar’s feet. Ser Balman, victorious, looks down at the Mad King, grim as can be – and then there are men moving, shouting.

Balman’s throat opens up, blood spilling out over the still-warm corpse of Aerys II. Viserys screams and tears away the shiny, bejewelled dagger slick with red to run, yelling for the pyromancer.

“Burn them!” Viserys yells, tiny voice echoing throughout the cavernous throne room. Jaime’s feet move without him and he follows the boy, not quite able to catch up with him before the pyromancer appears from nowhere. “Burn them all!” Viserys yells at the alchemist, who sees Jaime approaching, sword in hand.

They run, but little boys are faster than old men and the pyromancer trips, falling.

“All you need to do is tip it over, my prince!” the pyromancer rasps, voice carrying. “Run! The wildfire will combust immediately!”

Jaime almost falls himself, then. Without thinking of the consequences, still running, he digs his sword into the pyromancer’s leg. Viserys is a quick bugger and he knows the castle better than Jaime ever will – his little feet scamper downwards and it only a locked door that stops him.

Belatedly, Jaime knows people stopped to talk to the pyromancer and that people still followed him. He slows, panting, barely feet from Viserys and his bloody knife. He screams at the locked door, kicking it and shouting _pyromancers, hear me! Burn them, burn them all!_

“Your Highness, enough,” Jaime coaxes. “It’s over.”

“Traitor! You’re a _traitor!_ ” Viserys shouts at him, swinging his knife and crying, snivelling. Jaime grabs his wrists, forcing him to drop the knife. His legs kick up and Jaime _narrowly_ avoids That Kick, _twice._ He just keeps saying _enough,_ over and over again, until Viserys just stops moving.

“Finally,” someone mutters as Viserys falls quiet, before Rhaegar reprimands them.

“That is my brother. Do not speak to him.”

Jaime slowly – _slowly_ – picks the young prince up, holding him like he once did with baby Aegon, like he did so many times with Tyrion when he ever had a chance to carry him around. Viserys sinks into it, despite the armour and his blonde locks brush Jaime’s chin.

“Ser Jaime,” Rhaegar addresses him, “take my brother to his room. Guards will relieve you. You can go home now.”

“Home,” Jaime says, thinking of Cersei, Tyrion and Casterly Rock – how he could hear the ocean, even from the depths of the Rock and the sweet smell of _home._ “Home,” he says again and quite suddenly, Viserys is not the only boy crying.

* * *

The reunion with his family in Winterfell is bittersweet. Brandon socks him so hard his jaw breaks and to make it worse, the Snow Ladies refuse to let him in the Tower to see his children – nevermind that Ned has two new children to greet, born while he was away to war.

“Give them time,” Benjen says, who is unfairly happy with his own consequences, which included a great smacking kiss from his weeping wife and being the object of little Sansa’s fascination. Their niece even said her first word to him, barely a minute into their first interaction after they returned.

Ned, shoving his little brother out of his seat, ignores Benjen’s laughter to stomp over to the Snow Tower. He goes via the ramparts, where there’s no door or window – but there is what he recognises as an easy climbing wall. _I lived in the bloody Vale since I was eight,_ he grumbles, finding footholds and sturdy handholds in the new stone. _Even Robert can climb and he was there less time than me!_

He reaches the fourth-story window, where his children’s High Nursery is – the Low Nursery being for the younger litters of babes – and he notices the lack of guards on the top of the tower. He peers through the glass, glad the shutters aren’t closed for winter anymore, nearly startling off the ledge when two curious toddlers pop up to peer at him.

“…hello?” he says, wondering if they’re old enough to open the window-latch. _Young Lyanna and Edrick,_ he recognises his darlings, _only two namedays old._ Before they can reply though, Torrhen rushes over, plastering his face up against the window, bouncing up and down.

“ _Papa! Papa, papa, papa, papa-_ ” he reaches up, climbing so he can undo the window. Ned grins and stops him from over-balancing as he carefully enters the Snow Tower without permission from its Ladies.

Children swarm him, most four year-olds who remember their father’s face. Torrhen is crying now, clinging to his chest, Hanna likewise clinging to his leg. Lyarra is yelling in happiness, generally shrieking and Young Ned is- well, Ned’s namesake is staring at him from afar, wrapped up in a blanket with a child he doesn’t recognise.

“Who are you?” Ned mumbles, frowning at the little girl sucking her thumb. Her skin is burnt copper, like the Dornish, but she’s wearing Northern clothes. Young Ned sneezes abruptly, the little girl reaching to smush his face, babbling quietly to him, arms wrapping around him tightly afterwards, his head resting on her shoulder.

“She’s why we didn’t let you in,” Mariah says, crossing her arms where she sits on a chaise-lounge. “Milord, you could have fallen – why’d you climb the side of the Tower like that?” The former-kitchen girl moves across the room to close the open window, picking up one of the wandering little ones who mewls at the shut glass. Ned recognises Karla. _Or is it Karlon?_ Ned glances around the room, pinpointing the other twin, quickly realising there is no way to tell them apart.

“I wanted to see my children,” Ned says, moving across to a giant pile of furs set at an angle. He lifts Hanna up where she sits on his foot, pulling little Lyanna out of the way so he can lie back. He lets the children curl up around him and crawl over his belly, getting six out of eight that are in the High Nursery – well, six out of nine.

Ned still frowns at the little Dornish girl.

“Who is she?”

“Papa, papa,” Hanna mumbles, lisping slightly, batting at Torrhen as he tries to monopolise Ned’s view of the room. Ned shuffles the children better around, getting comfortable as he waits for Mariah to answer his question.

There is a long moment, before Mariah calls out to the girl, “…Raya, _Rhaenys_ , come meet Papa Ned.”

Later, Ned has a conference with nearly all the Snow Ladies. Tiffany and Mara introduce him to their new babes – Mara’s Cregan, like they talked about and Tiffany’s little Robb, born a few months after Cregan – before going back upstairs to supervise the other children. Ned begins to fume once they and the children leave, staring down Alyssa, who sits at the other end of the long wooden table set up in the base of the tower, parallel to their own set of kitchens.

“A man visited us in the dead of night, got in despite all the guards,” she begins, eventually. “Varys, the Spymaster. He had Rhaenys and Rhaella with him.”

“…I see,” Ned says, really _not_ seeing.

“Ser Jaime Lannister sent them away from Kings Landing, the night poor Prince Aegon was murdered,” Alyssa continues. “I made an executive decision. Sharra is gone.”

“Sharra’s gone?” Ned repeats, slightly distressed – Sharra being Edrick’s mother and to be frank, Alyssa’s best friend. “Where?”

“Varys said he needed someone trustworthy that you’d listen to, someone willing to disappear for a number of years,” Velya says and Ned notices how her consonants have rounded out, how being in the North so long has changed her Braavosi tongue. “Sharra volunteered, on the condition that he kept our children safe, too, the ones living and yet to be born, as long as he lived. She would not go with him otherwise and maybe made a veiled comment about little Rhaenys’ safety. Oh and we have a cat, too, now.”

“Sharra- a cat-” Ned’s brain spins. “A cat?”

“Eh, Balerion came with Rhaenys,” Velya shrugs. “She’s just a baby, of age with the older Snow pups. I’ve noticed that some of the children sneeze and have watery eyes around the kitty.”

“Allergies,” Mariah confides to in a half-whisper.

Ned is spun into silence. His ladies know which buttons to press, his friends that they are along with the mothers of his children. He does not meet Rhaella, wherever they have hidden her, but he does make Rhaenys’ acquaintance. Mariah makes him call her _Raya_ and Rhaenys calls him _Papa Ned_. The guards are apparently used to her presence by now, little that they’ve seen her. Barbrey is aware of everything – Brandon is aware of nothing.

A declaration comes from Kings Landing, stating that Harrenhal is to be torn from the ground, stone by stone. A permanent tourney ground is going to be erected, called _Aegon’s Ring_ , with permanent lodgings built in circles around the main arenas. Lord Rickard snorts and Lysa asks him where she and Benjen are to live.

“Not Harrenhal, that’s for sure,” Ned’s Lord Father says, before he announces his plans to make Benjen and Lysa Stark’s of the Stoney Shore and that they are to choose an appropriate new name for themselves, as his vassals.

Ned, meanwhile, is given a year to make the fortress that is Moat Cailin his home, before Rickard sends his family down after him. He will be Lord Stark, for his father, but his sons after him will be Lord Cailin of the Moat and Fever River. His domain shall be from the river White Knife where it splits, going down the coast till a third of the marsh supposedly belongs him; then across, taking a quarter of the forest-land, reaching up to the coast once more and along, till the Saltspear becomes the Fever River; then from the other side of the fever, a vertical line, cutting through plains formerly belonging to the Dustin’s, gifted some time after Brandon’s wedding, over all the way to the end White Knife once more.

Lord Rickard says to Ned in private that once his children are grown, both Ned and Benjen are past ripe and Rickard is buried in the crypt, he expects Ned to seize Cape Kraken once and for all, to give the land to one of his children and rename the entire area according to Stark tradition, then for Benjen’s children to do the same with the long-abandoned Rills. _The Ironborn shall get what’s coming to them, mark my words._

Kisses are given to all his children before he goes, ones on their foreheads and ones on their cheeks, too. His Snow Ladies each get their own private _kisses,_ though the guards smirk at him afterwards. They _do_ look on in an overwhelming quiet though as he says goodbye to twelve of his own bairns, one niece and a girl called Raya who says, ‘ _Goodbye, Papa Ned, I will miss you’_ like she’s not going to see him again.

“Don’t be afraid to ask us to visit,” Benjen says, solemn even as Lysa smiles at him. “We’ll be neighbours, almost, but that’s not for ages yet.”

“I will,” Ned promises.

A small group of men-at-arms go with him, to permanently man Moat Cailin in place of the interim Manderly and Dustin custodians. Others will join them in time – young Sandor Clegane who brought Lyanna’s ashes home, barely eleven namedays now, will come serve Ned as a Master-at-Arms once Rodrik Cassel is done with him; two of the six scribes apprenticing under Maester Luwin in library-keeping and other such things, including ravenry, will come to serve the new maester, whomever the Citadel decides to send; the kennel-master’s younger son has gone off to Dorne to collect a breed of guard dog that swims and lives happily in the Dornish marshes, meaning to bring some trained hounds and a few puppy litters to Moat Cailin to breed a thicker coat on them.

Soldiers follow him, cooks follow him, cleaning, serving and maintenance staff follow him – and Ned meets them all, their party growing larger further down the Kingsroad they get. Villagers trail behind them in search of work and housing, farmers bring livestock…it’s all a bit much.

 _I am the Lord of Moat Cailin,_ Ned thinks, _I am Lord Cailin._

It was said that in the beginning, like when the Children of the Forest near-cleaved Dorne from Westeros, they tried to do the same with the North. But it failed, or it didn’t completely work – the Neck flooded and Moat Cailin was eventually built, foundations for the twenty towers, high walls and inside domains sunk deep into the marsh.

There are only three towers, now – the Children’s Tower, said to be where the Children of the Forest brought down the Hammer of the Waters; the Drunkard’s Tower, which leans precariously to the east; and the Gatehouse Tower, where Ned and his party will be staying until they can get some true work done.

A fortress was built during the Rebellion, but Ned lets it be converted into a safe space for staff to stay, any and all livestock living nearby in a hastily-erected series of barns. It isn’t meant for long-term occupancy however, though it will do for now.

Ned begins panicking quickly. He conceals it from any and all who might see – but a year is truly not enough time to get the Moat back up to standard. All he can do is try to get as much properly done as possible and it is House Reed that comes to his rescue, three architects taking Barbrey’s plans of genius for Moat Cailin and adapting them to fit the surroundings. Within six months, one architect has demolished the Drunkard’s Tower and begun repairing the foundations, while another drains the marshes, heaving silt and sand into the smallest of cracks in the ground.

“The Children’s Hammer went deep to bedrock – but what lies on top may be strengthened and with time and dedicated care, held together,” the architect says to him.

The third architect is the one to build the port town at the end of the Fever River, the one to say no to villagers who attempt to create their own homes and direct them elsewhere, so their houses might survive through the flooding of the marshes. Ned busies himself with arranging his household, adjusting to the fact that _he_ is a bannerman now, that _he_ is a vassal of House Stark.

His brothers write to him. They tell him stories of how Karla and Karlon have had their hair dyed, so as to tell them apart; of how Old Nan was flirted with by a pelt-maker in full view of the kitchen staff; of how Lysa grows full with child and how Barbrey has birthed a son named after Brandon, who they call Bran.

The Snow Ladies write, as well. Alyssa lets the children tell her what to write, who say many _I love you, papa_ ’s and often _I miss you_ ’s. Tiffany tells of how Mariah is pregnant for a second time and Alyssa a third, not that they would dare tell him in a letter, still believing it unsafe to send such information by raven. Velya’s Braavosi script curls across many pages dictating their words, sent by courier and Ned feels shame that he can’t understand the intricacies of her language, unpractised in recent times, though he does his best to reply as well as he can with the help of a Westerosi-Braavosi tome of tongues.

Ned even gets a few letters from Robert, who is in the process of handing his lordship over to Stannis. _This life is not for me, Ned. I’m a fighter at heart and I’ll defend my home and my loved ones, but I can’t rule it._ As such, Stannis is to be wed to Ashara Dayne. Something like disappointment settles in Ned’s breast, before he pushes it aside.

_I have my Ladies – I have no need for a wife._

In the plains formerly belonging to the Barrowmen a small keep is built, allowing for a farming village to be created around it. Well, the architects plan for it, consulting with the farmers themselves that came from the North with them, divvying up land and giving out two years’ worth of gold to support them while their crops grew. Ned signs everything off, grimacing at the rapid depletion of his treasury – but his Lord Father was kind and the money given to them by the Crown was outrageous, so Rickard split it between Ned and Benjen.

Ned is quite sure his children will want for nothing and perhaps his grandchildren, too. If the war had been any worse, he’s quite sure it would be different. But he’s a frugal person and he doesn’t spend gold where it can be helped, even though the architects beg for larger allowances.

Lannister’s come North, during his rebuilding. There are six guards, sent to accompany four civilians, at Lord Tywin’s grace. The two serving-women whom he recognises bow and introduce him to two girls little older than one nameday each, before leaving them with him with no more than a by-your-leave, returning to the Westerlands. Ned keeps them close, thinking it an odd twist of fate that one is called _Lyanna_ , again. Like his Benjen’s – Young Ben and Benjy – there is now a Young Lyanna and a _Lya_ , as he learns to call her, along with an _Edda_ to go with his Young Ned.

“You’re blessed, milord,” Hilda, his head cook, says to him. “So many bairns.”

“Aye,” Ned says, thinking of the three women he bedded when he was South, travelling with Lord Tywin, two belonging to the Lannister serving class and one, Dorne. “So many bairns,” he repeats, wondering if there is another child of his in the South.

The year passes. Two moons after 284 AC begins, his family make the trip down and fourteen of his children and a princess greet him, whether with enthusiastic shouts and hugs or the squeals and screams of newborns. The children Mariah and Alyssa bore are both girls, several moons old now, called Serena and Arya. Serena has Mariah’s mouse-brown hair and Ned’s Stark grey eyes while Arya is like Young Ned and Torrhen, the Stark look obvious about her.

The children are placed in the Children’s Tower, sharing rooms and nurseries, much like in the Snow Tower – but Moat Cailin as a whole, including the yet-to-be-rebuilt Towers, is far larger than Winterfell. Mountains to the east protect them from an attack by sea from the direction of White Harbour and Oldcastle, creating a chokepoint between them and the Fever River. Each of the Towers are large, over four stories tall, set almost too far apart in a curving, half-moon line, the original Moat castle itself meant to be placed in the centre, of equal distance apart from the rest of the towers.

“It’s magnificent,” Alyssa says to him, when they stand on top of the Children’s Tower, looking out on the lands, “ _Enormous._ What of the curtain wall?”

“The architects keep me up to date,” Ned says, shifting slightly. “The stone has already begun to be mined for it. It’s the largest of drains, monetarily. It will be built once ten towers stand, before the Moat itself is rebuilt.”

“Is it true, that you can hold the North from here?”

“The Reed’s used to hold fort here,” Ned tells her. “Moat Cailin is the North’s own Bloody Gate.”

Alyssa, Vale-bred and true to her roots, side-eyes him. “So, what are the goat-paths that Moat Cailin cannot defend?”

Ned goes to Greywater Watch to find the answer to her question. Howland Reed greets him and all of a sudden, his new position feels bittersweet. The war began because of Aerys, yes – but only because Lyanna wanted justice for Howland.

“I do not hold it against you,” Ned makes sure to say, meaning it. Howland just shakes his head, before introducing him to the crannogmen, whom now fall under jurisdiction of both Reed’s and Cailin’s.

The next year is more hectic than the last, spending more time with his four eldest and Rhaenys, also. He helps them with their letters and numbers, sending another raven to the Citadel asking for a maester. Mara gets with child again and Ned decides that he shall attempt not to have any more, simply because his Snow Ladies ask it.

“There’s too many bodies, milord,” Mariah says, “Not that we don’t love the children, but even between the seven of us, it’s hard keeping track.”

“Seven?” Ned questions and it then, finally, that he meets Queen Rhaella.

She’s a beauty, it’s true, a true Targaryen. Her hair is silver, though, streaked with its natural white rather than the opposite. She wears Northern garb, like the Snow Ladies, one of Velya’s shawls wrapped around her head.

“Your Highness,” he greets and pauses when she flinches at his bow. “Milady?”

“No,” she says, quiet and determined. “I am no queen, not anymore. Call me Rhaella.”

“…Rhaella,” he says, tasting the name on his tongue, “You must call me Ned, then. I am sorry for what happened to you.”

The former queen does not reply, but it is not the last time Ned talks to her. Each evening, he has dinner with the Snow Ladies, unless his work overseeing the lands of Moat Cailin interferes with it. Rhaella joins them and she tells stories, sometimes just listening. Ned sees her playing with the children, kissing Edrick’s cheek when he calls her _Mama ‘Ella_ and singing pretty songs to Rhaenys about dancing dragons.

“They’ve taken to her well,” Ned says to Tiffany, taking a walk with baby Robb and Young Lyanna, who is nearing four namedays, like Edrick and their sister, Elba Stone in the Vale. “Rhaella, I mean.”

“She’s a lovely woman,” Tiffany says, “Older than all of us, except Sharra. Nearly forty name-days.”

“How old _are_ you?” Ned questions, amused.

“Around thirty, I don’t quite know,” Tiffany shrugs, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “You’re the baby out of us all, Ned, except Mara. Tyanna, too, I think.”

Ned scoffs, “I’ve been to war, sired twenty babes – I’m no baby.”

“Ooh, you’ve _warred_ and _fucked_ ,” Tiffany snorts, grinning. “Come now, milord, you’re not twenty namedays yourself!”

“I am,” Ned defends himself, “Or I will be next moon.”

Tiffany snickers, before giving him Robb and rushing forwards to grab Lyanna as she goes to climb the side of the long stone bridge, so newly built it’s still dusty.

“Oh no you don’t,” Tiffany scolds, swinging her daughter around before depositing her on her hip. “Bridges aren’t for climbing.”

Ned snickers, adjusting Robb in his grip, murmuring to his son, “Your sister is just like her aunt. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, though.”

It hurts to think of Lyanna, but not as much. Time heals all, as they say – though Ned sometimes thinks seeing Aerys’ head roll down to land at Rhaegar’s feet was too little punishment. For such a horrid king, he deserved much more pain. _He should have burned alive,_ Ned thinks, sometimes, _like Lyanna, like all the innocents he murdered._

That evening, Ned goes to see the Snow Ladies, not expecting the sight that greeted him. It’s a scene of sex, Alyssa between Rhaella’s legs, Velya’s hands in her silver hair as their mouths press together in a passionate kiss. He stares for a short amount of time, before Mara with her rounded belly sees him and croons his name. Ned shuts the door behind him, coming to kiss her, hands brushing over her flesh, dark shadows flickering over her belly from the firelight.

“ _Oh,_ ” Rhaella breathes and he looks over at her, seeing Mariah drawing Velya away from the former queen to the other side of the bed.

“Join us, milord?” Mara asks him, “Not in the traditional manner, but like this,” she motions to where Alyssa is holding Rhaella’s legs, face buried out of sight.

“Of- of course,” Ned says, because how can he _not?_

Later, he wonders if they do this often, if it’s what they do on cold nights when the children are asleep. Ned joins them when they do it, sometimes, when he isn’t busy – when the babies aren’t screaming and the older children aren’t having nightmares their siblings can’t soothe.

Rhaella lets him touch her for the first time after Mara dies, after their baby girl comes out of her womb stillborn and Mara bleeds till she’s too pale and too weak to go on. Rhaella didn’t let him caress her before, too used to Aerys’ raping and unwanted touches. She knows the grief which consumes him and the other Ladies, now, having lost eight children of her own before conceiving the two princes.

Tiffany weeps, inconsolable. It isn’t like with Tyanna, who they knew less than a year – Mara was beloved longer and truer, who birthed three of Ned’s children, even if only two survived. Alyssa is the one who cuts the stillborn girl’s hair to add to Ned’s locket, which he gave to her before he went off to war. She wears it for him, now and grieves in silence.

Velya rages. She looks after the children with vigour and takes the four eldest and Rhaenys out into the marshes, teaching them how to swim and how to sneak up on lizard-lion after spending a month away from them all, living with a crannogwoman she’s befriended.

“Mara was kind,” Mariah says in the dark, arms wrapped around Rhaella, with Ned on her other side. “I really loved her. She was- she was so _good._ ”

The children don’t understand, of course. The Snow Ladies were all mothers as a group to them and not just Mara’s blood-children miss her. Edrick screams louder than he ever has before, wanting to see her, vocal about wanting _Mama Mara_ as well as _Mother_ , Sharra’s disappearance finally making an impact. Hanna refuses to go to her lessons, understanding what death is, unlike her younger siblings. The toddling Cregan doesn’t eat, not unless all the Snow Ladies and Rhaella, too, are there in the room with him.

Some of them though – the babies, Serena, Arya, Edda and Lya – don’t notice. They’re too young. It breaks Ned’s heart.

“You are blessed,” Rhaella murmurs to him, hand brushing through his hair. The sit in his solar, Rhaella sitting against the arm of his chair. “That your children have never succumbed to deathly illness says much of your luck, milord.”

Ned shudders, “Please, don’t let me imagine it. Eighteen of my blood live here, nineteen in my charge. That number should be twenty-one.”

Rhaella shakes her head, “You have so many precious treasures to love and care for. Sometimes I forget.”

“They _are_ precious,” Ned grumbles, leaning into her side. “I’ve been talking with Howland about how to deal with the nomadic population and the new border. We’ve agreed that case-by-case basis is good enough for disputes, for now, but in the future…in the future, I’d like a close relationship between our Houses, but I’m not too naïve to hope that will remain so forever.”

“Your children are becoming marshmen,” Rhaella teases, “Don’t worry over the far future and what-ifs. Concentrate on the now. You are a building power and will rely on the Reed’s, just as the Stark’s have for thousands of years. Focus on your northern and western territories. If it truly is so bad…the Reed’s are practically nomads themselves. Your children can renegotiate later down the line, if that’s what it comes to.”

Ned sighs. “Statecraft.”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Rhaella grins, shaking her head. “Come. It’s late, milord. To bed.”

“To…sleep?” Ned queries, glancing up at her. Rhaella stares at him for a few moments, then slowly – she shakes her head.

“No. I plan on staying here for as long as I can. Come to bed, my lord.”

* * *

To her senses, it is deathly cold this far North, even though, _intellectually,_ Cassa Vaith knows Moat Cailin resides at the very most southern fringes. Against her chest, her Nymerosa sleeps soundly and Cassa thanks her little girl for the added warmth.

“Welcome to the Moat, Lady Vaith,” a steward greets her. “Bread and salt will be offered inside. Lord Stark waits to greet you – the rider who ran ahead of you was quite clear as to your intentions here.”

“Good,” Cassa replies, letting herself be hustled in the direction of a large, square tower. It looks more like a small keep, to be honest, except for how tall and _other_ it looks. _Northern architecture,_ she thinks, eyeing the black walls being erected on either side, stretching out to other towers, two large and as-yet unnecessary gates blocking the Kingsroad from being accessed. It winds around a tower and then through the marsh to the north, the gates and walls preventing people from crossing unless they’d rather swim. The whole area is a building-site – but the area is large and it’s not impossible to imagine Ned Stark and his Snows living right in the centre of it.

The steward takes her into the tower. A small antechamber greets her, a set of large double-doors visibly leading into a larger hall with two long tables inside. To the left of her is a gigantic staircase that goes all the way to the next landing and then above the same steps, she can see the next flight going further upwards. On her right is what can only be some kind of garrison, sets of guards stepping out to watch her and her small party enter.

“Lady Vaith,” Ned Stark greets her tiredly in the middle of the double-doors, a servant offering her and her party bread and salt. “Early is the morning. You could not stop in the night?”

“I had no wish to wake up cold and wet,” Cassa replies after accepting guest rite, entering the large hall with Lord Stark at her side. “This is Nymerosa Snow, your daughter.”

“Are you staying, Lady Vaith?” Ned asks her plainly, cutting straight to the point, “For your rider implied you were not.”

“My father has arranged a marriage for me that I am happy with,” Cassa replies, “but it is not in Dorne. His only fault is that of his pride. If she cannot have me, then my Rosa might as well have you.”

“A sound judgement,” Ned replies, sounding tired and looking guilty on her behalf.

“Don’t pity me or yourself, Lord Stark,” Cassa replies as he leads her to one of the long benches, sitting her in a chair nearest to the fireplace. Through it, for it has no back, she can see another room – the kitchen, perhaps. “You’re infamous. A good fuck, too. I have another son who will be staying with his grandparents, squiring under my brother. This is not tearing my family apart.”

“I apologise, still.”

Cassa sighs. “I’m Dornish. Get over yourself.” He flushes, but inclines his head, seemingly not unused to being talked to in such a way.

She introduces him to Rosa properly, unwinding her from her chest and handing her daughter over. Cassa will say goodbye when she leaves a week hence and in truth, she feels relief rather than sadness when Ned holds the toddler of two namedays in his arms gently, not moving in case he wakes her.

He offers her lodgings in the Children’s Tower, where his family resides, but Cassa declines. She takes a guest room in the tower they are in, which is called the Gatehouse Tower, enjoying the prospect of solitude in the company of her child.

_Just because I am letting her go, does not mean I do not love her._

Cassa meets the Snow Ladies the next day, along with the children. Rosa is overwhelmed at first by the many children, but they look like her and there are others her age, two older girls called Edda and Lya and two younger called Serena and Arya. Cassa doesn’t talk much with the other women, not wishing to make connections here – she is done with that kind of life.

Only, there is one child who shocks her, who completely _bowls Cassa over_ both mentally and physically, tripping her up in the nursery when she plays tag with a boy called Edrick. The sight of her makes her mute, dries up the moisture in her mouth and at the same time, makes her teary-eyed _._

When her time comes to leave, Cassa says goodbye to her daughter and leaves without a second look. Her guards wonder at her rush to return home, taking a ship from White Harbour rather than the Saltpans as planned, but she doesn’t say a word – not until she is in Kings Landing, on the eve her lady is supposed to depart once more for Dorne after leading the memorial for her children’s deaths.

“My Queen!” Cassa kneels in front of her, hands grasping Elia’s as the woman stares at her in shock. “My _friend,_ she is alive.”

“Who?” Elia questions, baffled. At her side, Rhaegar’s eyes go wide.

“Rhaenys. I saw _Rhaenys._ ”

* * *

A solemn sort of mood has fallen over Moat Cailin.

“It’s my fault,” Alyssa blames herself. “I should have made sure Rhaenys was with Rhaella.”

“How were you supposed to have known?” Tiffany questions, scornful.

The kings party left two weeks prior. Ned is holed up in his solar, speaking to architects, farmers and people seeking to settle arguments. He is being _a lord_ , running away from his grief while the Snow Ladies stew in the Children’s Tower. Rhaella and Rhaenys are probably in Kings Landing by now – there have been no letters, no news.

Ned is the quietest. He will not speak to them about her and Alyssa fears for him and Rhaella both. The Ladies know what they did together and Alyssa knows that Rhaella’s history with childbirth is rocky; they were preparing the week after she took him to bed. How will King Rhaegar react, if Rhaella does not take moon tea to rid herself of his child? What will happen to Ned? Rhaella was Queen of the Realms, once and the Mad King’s son…

Does King Rhaegar share that madness?

A contingent of the Dornish reside in Moat Cailin, gleefully learning how to survive in the cold marsh. They are adaptable and they are intimidating, meant to be Ned’s keepers as much as his guests. None of the Snow’s leave to play unsupervised – they never were before, but now the Snow Guard are ever-vigilant, instead of simply _aware_.

“What can we do?”

They can do _nothing._

* * *

Rhaella often escapes the Red Keep.

Her son is frustrated with her lack of willingness to stay in the castle where it is safe and secure, but Rhaella has lived apart from Aerys for over two years; knowing freedom was liberating and made her acutely aware of how boxed in her royal life is.

“Mother,” Rhaegar takes her hands, eyes pleading. “Why do you run? This is your _home_.”

“My home is in the Neck,” Rhaella says to him, as she has said so many times before. Her skin is ashen and her stomach forever-roiling. “I want to go home to my Ned and my ladies, son of mine.”

“But _this_ is your home!” he hisses, showing the first sign of anger. His grip on her hands tightens briefly, before he stands. “Do not have me consign you to the Maidenvault. These thoughts are borne of your captivity.”

“Are they?” Rhaella can’t help but reply, her backchat as always, taking Rhaegar by surprise. The Snow Ladies had freed her mind from Aerys’ grasp. Rhaella pushes, “Does Rhaenys still ask for her _papa?_ ” she teases coldly, only feeling a small amount of guilt at her son’s pain. It is in his eyes.

“You were a prisoner. So was she. My princess will forget, in time, as the child she is.”

“Elia has made her peace with it,” Rhaella reminds him.

Rhaegar shakes his head, “You are truly mad,” he says.

“I am not mad,” Rhaella replies patiently. “I only despise Kings Landing.”

“I can send you to Dragonstone, instead.”

“I want to go home to my towers and marshes – to the ladies whom I love and the children who called me their mother as much as the rest,” Rhaella brings his hands to her lips, kissing them. “Viserys is a stranger to me and a reminder of a past I want to forget. I was at peace in the North, my darling son. Let me go back there.”

Rhaegar says morosely, “You have no reason to go. You can find friends among the courtiers – I have replenished the Court, but you would not have seen, due to your reluctance to visit. You are my mother. Stay with me.”

“My heart belongs elsewhere, my soul bound to those men and women at Moat Cailin,” Rhaella says pityingly, knowing her son’s pain. She brings his hands to her belly, stroking his thumb. Rhaegar’s brow creases and she waits for his realisation. It comes with a thunderous expression and she smiles.

“He’s good-hearted and kind. He sought my affections with no thought to my body. He knows my history – my losses.”

“He _bred_ you,” Rhaegar growls, mutinous.

“I asked him to,” Rhaella replies and her son’s expression of anger flees, replaced by shock. Rhaella presses a hand to his cheek. “My heart belongs elsewhere,” she repeats and there is a long silence, Rhaegar’s forehead moving to press against her own. Rhaella closes her eyes.

 _O, my loves,_ she thinks, imagining her Alyssa, her Velya, her Ned and Mariah and Tiffany – even her Mara, dead and passed. _Lyarra, Hanna, Torrhen, Young Ned. Young Lyanna, Edrick, Karla and Karlon, Young Ben and Benjy. Cregan, Robb, Edda and Lya. Serena, Arya and Nymerosa. Our wolf pack. They’ll know there is another. A wolf with wings._

She presses a hand to her pregnant belly.

“Will you let me go, now, my beloved child?”

Rhaegar breaths in deeply, humming to himself. “On one condition,” he says, “decreed by your King and Lord of House Targaryen.”

“Tell me,” Rhaella coaxes, before their heads part and Rhaegar meets her eyes.

“You must marry him.”

* * *

Ned receives the raven only a day before the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. His mouth dries and he looks to Alyssa, who had taken it and read it before even him. Her eyes gleam with unshed tears.

“You are to have a Queen for a wife, my darling,” she says and Ned lunges forwards, the Royal decree declaring Queen Rhaella of House Targaryen is to wed Eddard Stark of House Cailin falling to the floor. Ned kisses his Lady Snow, pressing her up against the nearest wall and grinding into her silken skirt.

“She will be ours!” Alyssa gasps as he rucks up her dress, hand finding those sweet spots of a woman. “Oh- oh _my lord._ You will marry her and she will live here, among us. We’ll bring her to a heart-tree and promise ourselves to each other in the ways of your gods – we will belong to each other, with Rhaella as your wife and _lady_ -”

Ned brings pleasures to his Snow Lady, worrying bruises to her neck and collar as she collapses into him, hands snarled in his long, dark hair.

They spread the news to the rest of the Ladies, who cry and rejoice, Velya instigating a group event upon the table which they usually sit around and discuss matters. Ned even is allowed to take pleasure inside of his Braavosi Lady, Velya loudly welcoming one last child of her body to join Torrhen and Young Ben.

The next few days welcome raven upon raven, Lords of the Seven Kingdoms and Dorne gifting him with labourers and golden dragons by the thousands, so Moat Cailin might be fit for their former Queen. Her Majesty, Queen Elia herself sends her most hopeful regards – stating that Rhaella will keep to Kings Landing until the Royal Procession goes North for the wedding.

She would be joined by her young, newborn ward, when that day came.

Ned and his ladies rejoice and Tiffany makes the executive decision to journey South. For all that the Snow Ladies are infamous, few know their faces and Tiffany plans to infiltrate the servants – aiming to see their beloved once more before they are officially supposed to meet.

“Go, see her,” Ned blesses her journey, planting a sweet kiss upon her lips. The children say goodbye to her and Ned watches another of his ladies leave them, knowing that unlike Tyanna, unlike Mara – and even unlike Sharra – that she will return with their missing link.

“I love you all,” Tiffany proclaims before departing. A week later, Benjen rides to the Moat.

Ned greets his brother with strong arms, awed to see how tall his brother has grown. Benjen looks the part of his younger sibling, with Ned’s long face and dour eyes, though his wife’s influence is clearly seen in the Tully-blue of his new colours.

“Lord Harren,” Ned says, reaching to trace the carefully embroidered shark-inside-a-mountain on his tunic-front. “Welcome to the Moat.”

“Lord Cailin, I feel welcome – yet unappreciated!” Benjen grins, punching Ned over his heart. “Marrying Queen Rhaella, brother? Since when did you not know how to write or share such glad tidings with your family?”

“Since I only received news about it when the rest of Westeros did,” Ned replies dryly. He invites his brother into his home and his solar, bread and salt eaten and shared before Ned asks Benjen of his son.

“Lysa has named him Rickon, for father,” Benjen tells him. “He has her red hair and blue eyes – but our long face and Lyanna’s scowl.”

“I know that scowl,” Ned says, thinking of his own brood. They will be glad to see their Uncle Ben.

The months pass and to the Lord of Moat Cailin, the year 985 AC is prosperous. Three maesters arrive from the Citadel – well, two maesters and an apprentice – and Ned is grim over their thorough investigation of his home, advising and recording every last defensive measure he puts in place. It is Alyssa who takes them aside, the two scribes that had apprenticed under Maester Luwin at her back with frosty eyes and then there is only a single maester who bows and serves Ned loyally.

Prince Oberyn, who had been hiding among the Dornish contingent in the Moat up until the announcement of the Royal Engagement, snarks to him over their feasting table.

“You aren’t an idiot, at least. Your Snow Ladies hold you by the balls.”

“I love them equally – and they are my equals,” Ned says, unimpressed by the Dornishman’s language. Even now, he sees his older children of seven years muttering to each other gleefully, looking at the young prince with wide eyes. “I thought you from the far South would understand such a respect.”

It’s to Ned’s approval that Oberyn falters for the first time. He looks slightly lost, uneasy for the first time. Later in the night, he asks to speak to Ned in his solar and Ned graciously allows it.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” Oberyn says, voice only slightly japing as he motions to Ned with his wine. “I have spent much time watching you – I came to conclude that your ladies are political monsters, who would keep a Queen and a princess, my niece, from the eyes of the world until the damage had been done and House Cailin firmly attached to the next generation of Targaryen. That Rhaella bares your child is no secret to me.”

“The Wolf’s Blood is a virile strain,” he replies evenly. “She made her decision without my help.”

“Rhaella has always been meek. Her time here changed her, if my sister’s reports are correct. She is an altogether different person,” Oberyn says and Ned cannot help but listen, leaning fractionally forwards for a clue, any news of Rhaella. What Ned would do to have her here! To have _all_ his Snow Ladies here – Mara and Sharra most of all, after his wife-to-be.

“They ready themselves even now,” the young prince states, a mysterious quality to his voice. “Elia told me the name of Rhaella’s young ward.”

Ned’s eyes go wide.

“Tell me,” he demands, eyes bright. Oberyn smiles.

“Rhaegar would call her _Daenerys_ – but her mother calls her Dany of House Cailin.”

* * *

The Moat is fit to bursting when Rhaella finally weds Ned in front of Moat Cailin’s heart-tree. It is an old, gnarled thing with two half-faces split by a hollow – one half joyful, the other despairing. Rhaegar gives his mother away and keeps the baleful glare off of Ned during the ceremony, reserving it till after his first cup of wine.

Dany is unable to be hidden. Her hair is Targaryen-silver and her eyes, Stark-grey. When Ned’s horde of Snow’s filtrate through the dancing guests, she is laid amongst the youngest three, dressed in dragon-embroidered greys and silvers. Rhaella dances with Ned in the middle of the grand ballroom of the Fort, made for weddings and made for war – and then she dances with the Snow Ladies, declining the many waiting hand’s of Westerosi Lords.

When her lips meet Alyssa’s, in full view of the party, Ned smiles.

There will be terrible rumours later, but Ned has wed Rhaella already and there is nothing to be done. Rhaegar will not annul their marriage, too fearful of his mother returning to that shy, silent, screaming husk from Aerys’ rule.

Rickard Stark scowls at them both. Rhaella is his age, after all.

“You’ve seduced my son,” he grumbles to her, when she finally stops dancing with Ned, the Snow Ladies and their pups. After Rhaegar, he is her first stranger. “He’s happy.”

“Ned is easy to please – but I love him dearly.”

“You’d better,” Rickard mutters, before giving her a small smile and twirling her around in a merry waltz, gifting her to Brandon afterwards, whose own Barbrey sits in Winterfell with their young Bran, still too young to travel. Rhaella has a merry time with him before Benjen steals her away, only for Viserys to grasp her dress and plead clemency.

“My new bastard goodbrothers and goodsisters chase me!” he claims in a wail, before Hanna cackles from behind. Rhaella laughs, joyous and drunk on love and wine. Her arms sweep Viserys up onto her hip and Benjen swing Hanna into a jig, easily distracting her.

“Bastards they might be, but do not call them as such – they are your family,” Rhaella tells him and the young boy, only nine namedays old, looks pained at such an order. Rhaella presses a kiss to his cheek, seeing what he could become.

“I love them,” she tells him, “and if you are able, I would have you love them too. You are my son and they are your siblings, no matter their blood. Can you do that, my boy?”

“Your _prince_ ,” Viserys corrects and it isn’t a matter of station – it is his mother calling him another name, when he used to be her sweet prince where his brother was her valiant. She feels Ned’s hand on the small of her back – the only one who would dare – and Rhaella promptly passes Viserys to her husband, who looks somewhat startled, but determined once Viserys scowls at him.

“Good eve to you, Prince Viserys. May I have this dance?”

“You’re not my father,” Viserys proclaims, but his left hand rises and the other goes to Ned’s shoulder, waiting. Ned, practiced in the whims of children in his arms, shifts him onto his hip and dances with him, right hand in his left, face formal despite the absurdity of their positions.

For only a moment, Rhaella stands there watching, before Rhaegar once more pulls her into a dance.

“He is good with my brother,” her son says, before cracking his first ever jape over his new goodfather. “I hope they do not get attached – Viserys wanting to become a Cailin would wreak havoc on succession.”

A laugh bubbles from her throat. Rhaella embraces her son, the King of the Seven Kingdoms whom her husband helped raise there.

“Let us hope.”

* * *

_coda;_

Velya’s third babe is named for Jon Arryn and Rhaella bares one more, named Jaehaerys – the first and last of Ned’s twenty-four children to be named a Cailin. They are much similar with their Stark looks, though Jon’s Braavosi skin sets him apart from his pale, violet-eyed brother, who will one day rule the Moat as Lord Cailin.

Despite Rhaella’s words, Rhaegar does not raise his half-sister from bastardy and Dany remains a Snow, never knowing the difference. Queen Elia herself has no other children, leading Rhaegar, some twenty years later after the Long Night is behind them, to pronounce that female heirs may take precedence over younger brothers as they do in Dorne and the North. Rhaenys is named Crown Princess, while Viserys is wed to Arianne, the Princess of Dorne, keeping his royal title – it is the only way to keep him happy, to Rhaella and Rhaegar’s weary acceptance.

Benjen of the new House Harren goes on to have two more children with Lysa, Rickon joined by his younger brother Robert – who would later be known as Robin of the Rills, in historical records – and their sweet sister, Aregelle. Aregelle would eventually come to marry Theon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands after the Greyjoy Rebellion and the deaths of his brothers, the young boy living as a hostage at Stony Castle. The Siege of Cape Kraken, once relegated to Ned by his father, does not happen. It is not even a Siege. Instead, a new city of Ironborn is built under Ned’s wary eyes and Theon’s younger children with Aregelle live there as his vassals, part Ironborn, part Northern, answering to the Moat for their greenland pursuits and to Pyke for their overseas business.

In the Vale, Jon Arryn takes Cersei Lannister for his bride and together, in a somewhat distasteful matrimony, they spit out three Arryn heirs: Jasper, Joffrey and Lelia. When the three prove to live ten years, Cersei takes herself and Joffrey to Kings Landing alone, becoming part of the Court as representatives of the Vale in Southern business. Lelia Arryn would eventually become betrothed to Jaehaerys of House Cailin, extending Ned’s legacy by populating the nurseries again with eleven children whose parents live in harmony – some of Lelia’s blood and many not.

Jaime Lannister continues to live as one of the Kingsguard, up until an ugly woman with sapphire eyes and dreams of becoming a fierce fighter turns up at Court to request King Rhaegar’s permission to squire as a knight. The Court laugh at her, until Jaime volunteers to test her mettle with a blade. It is not love at first sight, but love at first _fight_ and Rhaegar releases Jaime from his vows when the Lady Brienne’s father, the Lord of Tarth and Evenstar, falls deathly ill – with the provision that he does not keep the Lannister name.

They marry for love, Brienne and Jaime of Tarth and they have a brood of children with heights and builds to match Duncan the Tall. All grow to be warriors like their mother and father before them, three amongst six sea-farers. The Tarthan trio would go on to discover the bones of their great uncle Gerion in the Smoking Sea, returning Brightroar and a plethora of Valyrian riches to Tarth and Westeros as a whole.

Jaime of Tarth’s _brother_ , the dwarf Tyrion, finds himself going through the trying ordeal of being Tywin Lannister’s verbal pincushion. He refuses to write to his brother to convince him to plead with Rhaegar for the Lannister lordship and when he grows tired of his father’s hateful spite, he visits the infamous Moat Cailin. Unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – Rhaella sees him and calls him _nephew_. Tywin is left without a direct heir as Tyrion gladly gives up his name, becoming a Blackfyre and squiring under Ned Stark’s master-at-arms, Sandor Clegane, just to prove Tywin Lannister wrong about his capabilities as a dwarf – and as a bastard son of Aerys Targaryen.

‘Ser Blackfyre’ would become colloquially known as the Dwarven Dragon, a strategist of high regard and a warrior of many scars. As an adult, Tyrion leads forces against both the Night King and the Essosi Blackfyre, come to claim his kingdom after being raised to know himself falsely as Aegon Targaryen; Jaime of Tarth would tell witness to such falsehood, having seen Aegon Targaryen’s death before his very eyes so many years ago. Young Griff, mothered by Sharra and raised for war by a paranoid Jon Connington at Varys’ behest, would return to Essos with his tail between his legs and Tyrion at his side as a minder, making to conquer Essos instead. Slavery would become abolished over their lifetime and Tyrion’s cousin would be glad for the dwarf’s presence, as the years went by – and for Varys, too, who followed them both and laughs when Tyrion makes jokes about his lack of balls.

The Westerlands would eventually go on to be led by Tywin’s grandson, Joffrey Arryn, whose mother upon hearing her father’s conundrum, convinces the Lord of the Vale to consign his second-born to the South. Jon Arryn agrees, but only when Joffrey’s brother Jasper has produced an heir of his own, a boy called Tommen. Joffrey Lannister is a lawfully-minded, but violent ruler with only his wife, Margaery of House Tyrell to better calm his actions. When his children are grown old enough for their mother to see their mind’s nature, Joffrey dies, Tears of Lys hidden behind a minor plague spread throughout the Rock.

The Tyrell’s are supremely happy with the outcome and the Queen of Thorns cackles when she hears of it; she’d never liked the beast her granddaughter married. Never. Olenna is joyous and thinks that even beyond the grave, Tywin Lannister is raging at the state of his House; she would be right.

Robert Baratheon ventures to Essos to make war as a mercenary, returning every few years to the Moat to visit his brother-in-arms, bypassing Storm’s End completely. Eventually, however, he would be politely banned from every visiting again, when he drunkenly attempts to pursue Lyanna’s young namesake, along with two of her sisters and Rhaella herself. In a twist of fate, Robert would end up at the Wall, squinting at the paltry fighters and their sloppy, disgruntled master-at-arms. So very many were surprised to find Commander Mormont’s signature accompanied by Robert Baratheon’s, asking for resources and men.

“A man of the Night’s Watch?” Ned Stark would balk upon receiving such a letter. “Robert Baratheon, a _man of the Night’s Watch?_ ”

“It would seem so,” Rhaella would reply, as equally mystified.

The Watch would grow slowly but surely, right in time for the sighting of the first rising of the dead. Robert Baratheon – in antithesis to his passing on the Stormlands to Stannis – organises for three of the castles along the Wall to be manned and staffed, all the while beating the new recruits and many of the old ones into a better standard of fighter.

Stannis Baratheon himself would have four children with Ashara Dayne and Rhaegar’s proclamation for Crown Princess Rhaenys comes in time for his eldest daughter, Shireen – about to be wed to a Reacher lord by her fool of an uncle, Renly Baratheon, Stannis slowly succumbing to Greyscale during his machinations – to take up the mantle as Lady of the Stormlands. Shireen would come to marry Bran Stark, second son of Brandon and Barbrey Stark, who would take on her House name and leave his elder sister Sansa with the burden of being Warden of the North. Shireen’s sister, Oryssa, enters an arranged marriage when she’s still young, wedding him at the end of the Long Night when her betrothed is better known as Robin of the Rills.

Catelyn Tully enters into matrimony with a rich, but ultimately unimportant lord in the Crownlands. From her marriage, Hoster Tully is given a vast sum with which he uses to upkeep Aegon’s Ring on behalf of the Crown, hoping to be given permission to host a new House there. He is lucky in that: and Petyr Baelish is uplifted, given leave to form a minor House in the Riverlands, with the eternal obligation to upkeep the memorial of a tourney ground that Harrenhal has become.

Baelish takes no wife, pursuing Catelyn’s daughter when she is still yet an adult; but her father does not take kindly to his advances and as he would in another world, Petyr Baelish comes to bear a scar that might have opened him in twain. He’d foster some few children, including bastards and one of said bastards, a Flowers by the name of Marjy would come to be adopted into his House as a daughter – though, it does not stop him trying to sleep with her and he gains a slap for his efforts every time. She still does bear him a pair of sons, eventually, though her soul is haunted; it bites Petyr in the back when his sons murder him in his sleep for the crimes against their mother.

Edmure Tully, with the Blackfish there to halt his growing idiocy and ego, weds a Westerlands woman by the name of Jeyne Westerling. His vassals cry out for the shame of him wedding a spicer merchant’s daughter – but the Blackfish approves, mainly because otherwise, Walder Frey might have had Edmure marry one of his own daughter’s. Brynden personally orders the removal of the majority of Walder’s bastards and excess family, citing the bridge-toll being raised so high as his reasoning: if Walder has less family to support, then the tax may be lowered.

Many sons go to the Wall – and many daughters to the Faith. But not all and a fair number band together and leave for Essos, some settling in Braavos as merchants and concubines, while others join the Second Sons. It’s said that those who became sell-swords in the Second Sons were responsible for the fighter Mero’s death, but no evidence is ever unveiled.

Through the course of the forced-exodus, Brynden Tully makes moon-eyes at one of Walder Frey’s sons, Symond. A coin-counter and spymaster, Symond joins Brynden in Riverrun, making use of his network to rout out corruption and disloyal vassals with his romantic partner. With him at Brynden’s side, a better Riverlands Edmure doth comes to rule.

When Rickard Stark finally dies, Brandon becomes Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. He is responsible for the North during the Long Night and when he is killed in battle, his lack of arm for a shield his downfall, his daughter Sansa takes over. Barbrey Stark teaches her daughter well, though – and Domeric Bolton is her suiter for a long while, having been engaged since childhood, until he is murdered. His murderer, his bastard brother Ramsay, is beheaded at Sansa’s own hands, the North flowing through her veins like ice.

“The one who passes the sentence must swing the sword,” she hisses when it’s done, blood splattered across her face and her grey eyes alight in grievous fury.

With Domeric’s death, Sansa refuses to marry for years, denying suitor after suitor. Only when Ser Tyrion Blackfyre returns to Westeros as a man only slightly past his prime does she finally let her gaze fall upon another. They only have one child, who is healthy and Northern – though his brown curls go golden in the Summer sun, whenever he ventures past the Moat. The future Lord of Winterfell is recorded to have had two companions: the third-born granddaughter of Oberyn Martell and the bastard son of Willas Tyrell, born of a stablemaster’s daughter. His heirs still all have the Stark name, despite this.

At the age of ninety, Ned Stark dies in his bed, joining his long-passed Ladies. He never has any more children after Jaehaerys, but the maester’s accounts of the era agree: the Snows of Moat Cailin went on to do many things that changed the course of Planetos’ history for the better, the most famous of their actions being sailing West of Westeros and mapping all the realms that laid there.

And so: the life of Ned Stark, father of too many children to count on his hands and feet added together.

**Author's Note:**

> by parents~
> 
> Alyssa: Lyarra (978 AC), Karla & Karlon (980), Arya (983)  
> Mara: Ned II (978 AC), Cregan (982), baby girl (984; dead in childbirth)  
> Velya: Torrhen (987 AC), Benjen II (981; 'Young Ben'), Jon (986)  
> Tyanna: Hanna (978 AC)  
> Farmer's daughter: baby girl (979 AC; dead in childbirth)  
> Vale woman: Elba Stone (980 AC)  
> Sharra: Edric (980 AC)  
> Mariah: Benjen III (981 AC; 'Benjy'), Serena (983)  
> Tiffany: Lyanna II (980 AC; 'Young Lyanna'), Robb (982)  
> L. serving girl #1: Edda (982 AC)  
> L. serving girl #2: Lyanna III (982 AC; 'Lya')  
> Dornish woman: Nymerosa (983 AC)  
> Rhaella: Daenerys (985 AC; 'Dany'), Jaehaerys Cailin (986)
> 
> or by date~
> 
> 978: Lyarra, Hanna, Torrhen, Ned II  
> 979: baby girl (d)  
> 980: Lyanna II, Edrick, Elba Stone, Karla & Karlon  
> 981: Benjen III, Benjen II  
> 982: Cregan, Robb, Edda, Lyanna III  
> 983: Nymerosa, Serena, Arya  
> 984: baby girl (d)  
> 985: Daenerys  
> 986: Jon, Jaehaerys


End file.
